What was the great mid-Atlantic quake, like a 5.1 or something? I barely felt that, first one in my life I ever felt actually, didn't even realize it was a quake until I saw the news. A 2.9 is absolutely nothing, I don't think that would even get neighborhood dogs barking.

nekom:What was the great mid-Atlantic quake, like a 5.1 or something? I barely felt that, first one in my life I ever felt actually, didn't even realize it was a quake until I saw the news. A 2.9 is absolutely nothing, I don't think that would even get neighborhood dogs barking.

*If* you are right on top of the epicenter a 2.9 quake is certainly noticeable. But get a half mile or so away and.. not so much. Of course it also depends on whether it's a shallow or deep quake...

we had a 4.3 off the coast of Dover/Folkestone a few years ago. We felt it 15 miles inland, and my workmate, who lives in folkestone, said the ground vibrated violently for a few seconds. Varying degrees of structural damage and one woman got whiplash. I just remember laying in bed feeling a sense of movement, and a small ornament against our window rattled a bit

Spiralmonkey:There are approx. 200 - 300 earthquakes like this a year in Britain, usually so small you rarely notice them. No big deal. No devastating pictures of lawn furniture.

This. It typically takes the frackers to cause a bigger earthquake. That is when they cause a fair amount of damage. The last big one nearly crushed my niece to death when the chimney went through her bedroom and missed her by a foot.

Depends what type. If it is rolling; the type you hear coming, ya sure.

I went through a 4.1. Just woke up and lying in bed then bam, on the floor, no warning nothing. Whole place shifted 4 feet one way, and back 8 feet, twice and it was over. It basically jolted me off my bed. Hit my head on the side of the nightstand.

I grew up in Toronto, also not known for earthquakes. Every time a small one hit it was big news, and for good reason. The reason is this: earthquakes are neat. Everyone who has lived in a "stable" area desperately wants to experience one. People aren't freaking out because they are frightened, they're freaking out because it's cool and interesting.

My wish was granted in Seattle in 2001. Not a hugely powerful earthquake but it was wicked cool.

Stantz:we had a 4.3 off the coast of Dover/Folkestone a few years ago10th of a score ago. We felt it 15 miles24 kilometers inland, and my workmate, who lives in folkestone, said the ground vibrated juddered violently for a few seconds. Varying degrees of structural primary damage and one woman got whiplashwhoopla. I just remember laying in bed feeling a sense of movementtransit, and a small ornament against our window rattled clattered a bit

Christchurch, NZ palms it collective faces at you. There are usually several here that size PER DAY (though to be fair there were only 8 last week) You don't even feel them. People check quakes here the way UK checks the weather; Link

UK were always pansies, but damn they are really mutating into a bunch of shrinking violets lately.

I spent the first couple of decades on or near the Ring of Fire and never felt an earthquake. I had to move to Ottawa to finally experience one. It wasn't until 10 minutes afterwards that I realised what it was.

/we thought a gas canister had blown up outside//stood around for a while talking before someone said "Do you think maybe we should evacuate?"

Ooh! People in Cali are so cool and tough. They can handle their house shaking a little once in a while.Come to the mid-west and sit in the path of an F4 Tornado. Bring extra underwear in the event you survive, ITG.

Ooh! People in Cali are so cool and tough. They can handle their house shaking a little once in a while.Come to the mid-west and sit in the path of an F4 Tornado. Bring extra underwear in the event you survive, ITG.

Ooh! People in Cali are so cool and tough. They can handle their house shaking a little once in a while.Come to the mid-west and sit in the path of an F4 Tornado. Bring extra underwear in the event you survive, ITG.

Unlike earthquakes, tornadoes are preventable. Most of the rest of the world learned that years ago, and keep our trailer parks limited to safe low numbers well below the tornado threshold. When you bumpkins will finally figure that out is anybodies guess.

fireclown:As a survivor of the noticeable but non-harmful Maryland quake of last year, I stand firmly with my UK brethren.

As a fellow survivor of that quake, I learned the correct evacuation procedure is to ask dumb questions to your coworkers, then wander outside and mill around in the parking lot alternately staring at the sky and at your cellphone. After about 30 minutes maybe go back in or go to lunch. Whatever.

Jument:I grew up in Toronto, also not known for earthquakes. Every time a small one hit it was big news, and for good reason. The reason is this: earthquakes are neat. Everyone who has lived in a "stable" area desperately wants to experience one.

Not me. Houses in Denmark are generally not designed to withstand earthquakes.

Small quakes are common in the UK. Most often they occur in the midlands, it seems.

Charles Hoy Fort collected many descriptions of "anomalous" small quakes and descriptions of "thunder" from the sky which accompanied them. If he had been less of a skeptic and a joker, or if he had had some knowledge of, say, medical semiotics, he might have realized that these sounds did not really come from the sky but were created by the quakes. As it was he was a skeptic and a joker and liked to mock the positivism of nineteenth and early twentieth century science, so he suggested these sounds really did come from the sky and that they may have had nothing to do with the quakes.

The British Isles are still rebounding from the ice cap that covered bits of them during the last glaciation. Scotland is rising, and conversely, the South of England is sinking. This, combined with rising sea levels and erosion, as well as some human activities such as peat cutting, has resulted in a fair amount of land lost to the sea, including some prosperous medieval towns and villages.

Although Britain is not sitting on the kind of subduction zone that produces the most spectacular earthquakes and volcanoes, it is still mildly geologically active, hence the small earthquakes. I don't know of any really big ones in historical times.

There are similar areas in North America where small earthquakes are common and large ones very rare.

We have had a number of earthquakes between 4 and 4.5 in the National Capital Region (or rather, in nearby Quebec) and in my native New Brunswick. I was indoors through all of these, but the building swayed and made a noise like trouble with an elevator in one, and the dishes rattled in another. My parents and neighbours reported that the earthquake sounded like a train going by across the river in this latter case, because they were outside on the patio.

Both the Ottawa River Valley and the Maritime Provinces are also sinking gently because of the rebound of Hudson's Bay and the surrounding tundra and boreal forest from the last glaciation, so I suppose we are experiencing the same sort of geological activity as the UK. There are other places where earthquakes are more violent. The St. Louis area has had bad quakes in the past and will likely have another soon, which is to say within the next couple of centuries, because you can't really predict earthquakes much better than that . The mechanism and type of these earthquakes is quite different from the usual quakes that you get in California or Japan. You can find more details online easily enough.

Dansker:Jument: I grew up in Toronto, also not known for earthquakes. Every time a small one hit it was big news, and for good reason. The reason is this: earthquakes are neat. Everyone who has lived in a "stable" area desperately wants to experience one.

Not me. Houses in Denmark are generally not designed to withstand earthquakes.

That's a point. I should qualify that we want to feel a little one. :)

Jument:Dansker: Jument: I grew up in Toronto, also not known for earthquakes. Every time a small one hit it was big news, and for good reason. The reason is this: earthquakes are neat. Everyone who has lived in a "stable" area desperately wants to experience one.

Not me. Houses in Denmark are generally not designed to withstand earthquakes.

That's a point. I should qualify that we want to feel a little one. :)